Nuclear Option is 'Rockin' Good News

Andrew Cohen: “There is nothing ‘nuclear’ about permitting a majority of elected officials to do what the Constitution requires and demands that they do: vote on which judges ought to sit on the nation’s benches. What was ‘nuclear’ was the way in which Republican senators these past few months years have refused to vote up or down on judicial nominees who were patently smart, able, dedicated to public service, and ‘mainstream.'”

“The coming era means that Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for federal judges now will be consistently more intense, partisan, and revelatory than they have ever been before.

“This, folks, is rockin’ good news …. [because] judicial nominees should be evaluated more in public on the merits of their work and the arcs of their careers. They should have to reveal more about their judicial ideologies, to the extent they have any.”